2010-05-14 - What Lies Beneath
Huang Long, the fairyland on Earth. China's famous scenic spot, well-known for an extraordinary amount of beauty, living scroll painting, is today the place where an unusual expedition is taking place. Someone has discovered, recently uncovered by erosion of the stone in one of the many waterfalls in the valley, some manner of sealed chamber that, according to initial surveys, may contain something mechanical or at least metallic of not insignificant mass. Therefore, it is the perogative of the EFA to do their best to move this with the smallest amount of fuss and public knowledge, without people finding out about it and moving to damage the beauty of Huang Long. Of course, that can come later, because the expedition is not due to happen until after noon and it's 11 now. As such, Ryoto Hikawa, here to supervise as head scientist, is enjoying the sights. Roger Smith gets around. Not like that! Perverts. After all, Roger Smith is a well-to-do man; well known across the Earthsphere, Roger often gets jobs from countries far from Paradigm, making travelling a major part of being, well, Roger Smith. An irony that he was also the Neo-Priceline Negotiator. So it is that Roger has found his way into Huang Long. The dispute has already been settled (some territory grab between companies who needed a reliable middle party), and it was going to be quite a while before Roger's flight arrived, so he figured...why not just relax and see the sights? At the moment, in addition to his standard black tuxedo ensemble and sunglasses, Roger is wearing...a straw hat, and sipping a drink as he looks out over the scenery. Pretty impressive. An expidition into China? Well it's better then a combat deployment. Meiya hikes up the hill wearing dungarees and t-shirt. Her hair has been bundled up in a bun behidn her head and held underneath a sun hat. "I'm not sure I agree with treating this like a vacation..." "But it is beautiful here." Of course, Touya knows nothing of this mysterious chamber, and neither does Festenia. No, they're just here to look at all the pretty scenery. The Fury girl dashes about the area with hyperactive energy, dragging Touya with her to check out every little thing, fascinated for only a moment before something else catches her attention. "This place is beautiful! Thanks for taking me here, Touya!" she says. "You dragged me down here, not the other way around..." the teen replies, catching his breath when she finally stops for a minute. "But yeah, it's pretty." "Why do they call it a fairyland when there aren't any fairies, though? It doesn't make much sense to me." "That doesn't actually mean there are fairies here, Fest..." Unfortunately for Touya, he doesn't get to explain what the term actually means before Festenia runs off again to look at something else. Sometimes, he wishes Melua would ask him to come to places like this. She's a lot less energetic... Ha ha, woman troubles. Roger Smith never has woman troubl- Wait. Still, Roger can't help but grin a little bit at Touya's misfortune. It was nice to see somebody else getting jerked around by a woman for a change. "Supposedly the entire place is made of limestone and rocks like that. There are a lot of pools up on the 'yellow dragon'... as a matter of fact there's water everywhere here. I'm surprised by how much of it there is, it's like a natural water garden." "I'm glad you could come too, Meiya. It's been far too long since the last time I saw you," says Ryoto. He's snapping pictures to take back for Rio. The dispute was resolved quickly and easily with Roger's help, although the equipment to actually enter the cave is only being set up now. Lazy! It's necessary for a large cover to be placed over the waterfall to divert it so that the water can still flow, and although the investigation proper isn't set to begin until noon, the cave itself- now that the diverting cover is in place- is going to be open for tourists to take a peek inside. After all, surely nothing bad is in there. "I'm glad I could come." Meiya smiles. "I haven't seen you in a long time. How have you been? Work okay?" It's sort of odd, her family is in almost direct compitition with the company Ryoto works for, but here they are, chatting away. Touya finally manages to sneak away from Festenia, trying to catch his breath after all that running about. He makes his way toward the others, to ask about the waterfall and the cave that he noticed earlier. "Ah...what's with the cover? Is someone going to explore the cave or something?" the teen inquires, wiping a small bit of sweat off his brow. "A cave? Exploration? Can we go in and check it out? Huh, Touya?" Well, so much for getting away from her. "Yeah, I'm really proud of the Huckebein design I managed to make. It's one thing to go through all of the paperwork on my desk, it's really another to see a machine you made yourself standing in rows protecting people." Ryoto considers Meiya one of his best friends, and one of the few people he knows for sure is a good friend. Talking with her is always fun. "I'm kind of hungry, but it's almost a good thing there's nowhere to eat. If this place was too tourist-y it'd ruin it. So it's a good kind of hungry?!" Plus you get to ramble as much as you want and not look stupid. When Touya walks up, he's a face of professionalism all of a sudden. "The cave's open to look into now, but since it's only just appeared because of erosion tourists have to be accompanied. Can't go in too far, since we don't know what's in there yet." He turns around. "Meiya, do you want to go over and look at it for fun before we get down to the work?" Meiya laughs softly at Ryoto, covering it behind her hand. She straightens up. "Allright." she nods and walks towards the cave. Roger pushes off the wall. A cave? Hnnnn. Caves tended to hide things...and those corporations had been going awfully slow. So Roger just slips up along the rest of the group and holds up his hand at them, taking a sip of his drink through the straw. "Hi there. Roger Smith, Negotiator. Mind if I tag along?" He cut right to the point. People tended to be pretty binary about this kind of thing. Touya sighs. There's just no getting out of it, is there? "Alright, since he said we could go in, then I guess we can." he says, and finds himself once again being dragged, literally, into the cave by his overenthusiastic copilot. "Oh! Mr. Roger Smith!" Ryoto says. "I've heard of you." "(It's Roger Smith!)" he says quietly to Meiya. He's clearly kind of impressed. More than a couple people are already looking to go inside, most of them with cameras too. Or sketchbooks. Someone's even got got a large, burlap sack with nothing in it. That's an odd choice of things to take with you when sightseeing. "Come on, let's head inside, we can cut straight through," Ryoto says, wandering over. Yes, this does mean Touya and Festenia can cut ahead of the public but Ryoto doesn't pick up on this precisely. "It's bound to be interesting..." Inside, the cave looks rather pedestrian so far as far as caves are concerned. It's craggy, but looks as if there's not exactly very much room inside for anything metal to be there. One wall looks as if it might have been sealed up, and the terracotta soldiers nearby lend credence to this idea. However, when inside, it feels somewhat unerring almost straight away. The stones look a little more like teeth, and the patterns on the rock like faces... "Nice to meet you," Roger says offhandedly. He's busy focusing on the rock-teeth. That's...not supposed to be that way, he thinks, quietly dipping into his pocket for a camera. Click, click, click. It was touristy enough that he could probably pass it off as 'interesting' instead of 'something to show the Trailers later'. Fortunately for Touya, there's not very far to run, and Festenia stops right about in the center of the cave. She lets go of him long enough to walk over to a toothstone and poke it a few times, a puzzled expression on her face. "Hey Touya, doesn't this place feel kinda weird to you?" she asks without looking at him. Touya takes a moment to get back to his feet before responding. "Huh? Well, now that you mention it, it does kinda have a strange air about it. Those rocks aren't really helping." The boy looks around at the cave, rubbing a spot on his head where it bumped against the floor while he was being dragged. Indeed, the place is rather unsettling... Meiya walks in just behind Ryoto and stops to look at him as he whispers Roger's name to her. "Roger Smith?" she glances at the man in the suit, raising an eyebrow. She turns back forward and pauses, looking at the mouth lke cave. She pauses and moves towards the terracotta soldiers. "You'd think they were trying to keep people out." "Or something in." Is anyone looking at the statues? They're the creepy kind, to be sure. Scowling and staring right at you. In fact they've been staring at you ever since you came in. That's sort of unnatural, isn't it? The toothy-looking stone even gives a little when Festenia pokes at it. 8Z___Z "hsssssss..." Ryoto rubs his forehead. "Did anyone else just see that statue mo-" And all of a sudden, the air is full of tiny sparkles. The cave crackles for just a second-- And with a sudden inward rush of stale air from the cracks in the sealed wall, all four of them vanish in a flash! The tourists outside lurch backwards and run, one man dropping his camera only to see it vanish too. The group turns and runs, surveyors and public alike. Everyone's in for a rough landing, as they appear in a very dark and lightless cave. The camera lands on Ryoto's head. "Ah! What happened?" he shouts, very unable to see and flailing his arms around. "Where is everyone?" "Calm down," Roger replies, tapping his watch. Light shines from one of the hidden functions of the Very Nice Watch, projecting a flashlight beam into the darkness. "Panicking doesn't help. Where are we?" Festenia stares at the sparkles, pointing triumphantly at them. "See? There /are/ fairies here!" she says, jumping around excitedly. That is, until they all suddenly disappear. Touya, upon landing, instantly freaks the hell out. "Oh god where are we why can't I see Festenia where are you why is it so dark-" he panics, despite Roger's advice. Festenia uses the sound of his voice to find him, and tries to calm him down. "Touya, it's alright. Touya? Hey, Touya." she says, but he doesn't listen. Finally, she just slaps him across the face, and he immediately stops and takes several deep breaths. "Th...thank you, Fest. I needed that..." Sparkles what? Moving statues. Oh, no... Meiya's landing is rough, but still not to bad. "Oof!" nnnhg she blinks as her eyes adjust to the light. from Roger's watch. "I landed on something soft..." That would probably be Ryoto. "AWK" goes Ryoto. That's what I like to call a broken neck. Although not really. Fortunately, being landed on helped snap him out of any panic, and as an added bonus, hearing Touya get slapped helped him hear sort of where they were. "OK, guys," Ryoto says, picking himself up. "I am going to turn on a flashlight. Get ready so it doesn't hurt your eyes. Um, is everyone ready? I'm turning it on..." Click. SKELETONS AND SEVERED HEADS AND BLOOD EVERYWHERE actually no there's not really all that much of that at all. It seems to be a sort of tunnel, in fact. There's no indication which is the right way to go, be it left or right, though. But it /does/ look as if something made this tunnel by digging... Roger's high-power watch-light is swinging the other way, looking down the other end of the tunnel. No reason not to be cautious. This is unfamiliar ground, and it has the negotiator unnerved - and if he has to, he might call on the Megadeus at his command to help out... Touya and Festenia close their eyes at Ryoto's instruction, and slowly open them a few seconds later. And hey look they're in a tunnel. "Where does it lead, do you think?" the teen asks Ryoto. Meiya blushes when she realizes what she's sitting on, fortunatly the dark cave means no one can see that. She gets up to her feet and helps Ryoto up. "This cave looks like it was dug out." Meiya pats around her belt for her own flashlight. "Hold on." she turns on her own light and then holds out some strands of her own hair. "If there's fresh air, we should follow where it's coming from." "Hopefully, one route leads /out/," replies Ryoto. "Thanks for making a noise, by the way, it helped find where you were." Naturally he thinks Fest just... clapped, surely. You /could/ split up, of course, since there are two ways to go. Do you dare? The light shone in either direction doesn't really show anything obvious, but it may be possible to pick out the markings of whatever dug this tunnel. Perhaps looking at them could give an idea as to the right way to go. Touya starts to look a little worried. "'Hopefully'?" "You're welcome!" Festenia says, notably less concerned than her partner. "Well, guys, there's only one way to find out which direction to go in. Touya, take the lead!" Touya seems about to panic again. "What? W-why me?" The Fury girl shoves him in the direction of one of the tunnels. "Because you're a guy! It's your job to make sure the way's safe for ladies like me!" Touya can only think of one thing to say to that. "Oh, man..." "I can't see any air moving." Meiya frowns. She shines her flashlight at the walls. "Whatever dug this had a destination in mind." She has spent an awful lot of time underground. Figuring out which way the tunnel was dug shouldn't be hard. Roger remains silent. They were right; it was much like being trapped in Big O's underground railroad. But more importantly, Roger wasn't interested in finding a way out. Theoretically, his grappling hook should do the same. No, mystery called to Roger Smith like it called to Sherlock Holmes, and he chased it down and beat it with whatever he had on hand. So he remained silent about the watch's grapple for now; besides, these kids would probably want to explore anyway. "If you can't, I don't know where we might be underground," says Ryoto. "Let's just go one way for a few yards, then maybe go back... Mr. Smith, can you please stay close to her?" he asks, indicating Festenia. "Meiya, you stay near the back just in case." It might be surprising for Meiya how take-charge Ryoto is acting. He is worried, admittedly, of something attacking them... nine times out of ten being teleported into a strange cave is typically the work of something with sinister intent. Of course, since Ryoto just has awful luck, they're not more than a few yards down the tunnel that they get attacked from the /front/. Actually, that's too simple a lead in. Let's explain that a little more. It may have been a bad idea for Touya to take point. The group only gets about one second of warning in the form of 'something making a clicking noise' before something darts out. Maybe it's just a bat. A particularly hungry bat, but-- Nope, no suck luck. The clicking begins to rise in intensity for about two seconds, before a sudden swarm of small, hard bat-like bodies leap out of the shadows. They swarm straight for Touya first, and as soon as someone realises what they are a second group goes flying right at the others. Lumpy, old, clicking and ticking like some sort of ancient clockwork-- well, maybe they ARE ancient clockwork- the enemy are... huge robot bees. Oh snap. "Absolutely," Roger replies, winking at Festenia over his sunglasses. What a louse. But Roger's posture is that of a skilled boxer; he's obviously not just somebody who says 'I can protect you' to impress people. So as they progress along, Roger's light shining on, Roger is growing more and more curious. What was going on down here? And then the bees show up and just ruin it. Roger's immediate reaction is to jerk back to protect Festenia; he interposes himself between her and any bees nearby as he readies his grappling hook to fire through one of the things' heads. Hey, he wasn't a killer, but he had no problem blowing up ancient artifact bee robot things. This day was getting weirder and weirder. Roger talks into his watch for a brief moment before informing the others, "Might be the Nubia Syndicate. Apparently they like bees." "Uh, guys. I don't think we should have gone this waaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH-" Touya starts, but the sudden appearance of giant robotic bees causes him to start panicking again, trying to slap them away from him while screaming in a very high pitch. Festenia, meanwhile, has just as little a clue as to what's going on as everyone else. But even so, these things don't look like they're here to welcome them in and offer them tea and crumpets. When one flies past Roger and heads straight toward her, she blinks, gives it a split second's thought, and swats the bee away with a left hook. And then she regrets it immediately afterward, as she realizes that punching something made out of metal results in pain, lots of pain. "Ouch, ouch, ow!" Meiya nods slightly "Alright, but... becareful." she moves towards the back of the group. She tilts her head as she hears the sound "Did anyon-" Oh shit, bees! "Down!" Meiya reaches behind her and grasps hold of her almost ever present sword. The weapon flashes through the air reflecting the flashlight light as it scythes through clockworkbees. "We either fall back or forge ahead. Pick one." Fortunately despite their initial surge, the bees are somewhat lacking in pep. They are, yes, attempting to stab you with syringe-like stingers and inject some sort of unspeakable dark green fluid, but some of them who attempt to do so just end up making a 'wssh' noise as their internal resevoirs have long since dried up, or they shoot some rotten or gummy substance that is hardly deadly any more. Unfortunately, the initial surge did a pretty good job and is dragging Touya off as we speak, even as Ryoto does his best to swat them into the walls and floor, crushing them with kicks. Festenia's punch hurts her own hand, but does knock the bee-bot's wing off, bmeaning it just buzzes around in circles. Meiya just outright cleaves them. "Hey! Leave him al-" Ryoto tries to say. A bee flies into his mouth, causing him to fall on the floor and go into spasms. Touya's screaming has stopped by now, as he has passed out from the shock of being attacked by soccer ball sized bee robots I mean god damn. As for Festenia, after she gets over the pain of punching a bee-shaped hunk of metal with her bare fists, she realizes that Touya isn't there anymore and starts to run after him. "Touya! Hold on, I'm coming for you!" "Forward!" Roger shouts, a roundhouse kick snapping out at one of the bees as he ducks around another's stinger. Festenia runs past him, and Roger mutters something under his breath, then takes off after her. "Don't just charge!" Roger shouts, putting on his best Commanding tone, "You'll get separated! Stay together!" This is...amazingly bad. Meiya contines to cleave and slice her way through robotic bees towards Ryoto as he goes down "Ryoto!" She gets up to his prone form and reaches down for the bee on his face. "Roger Smith!" she points at Touya getting dragged away. And then attempts to tear the bee free of Ryoto's mouth. There is sadly no time to be gentle. PTOO. You may get bee on you, Meiya. As soon as he has spat out everything he can (there may be a spring caught between his teeth), Ryoto is up and spitting some more. He breathes out a "Thanks-" to Meiya, then follows Roger's lead and moves forward. When the group does... They see this. http://srwog.velv.net/mecha_images/bunbun.png A 'relatively' small machine, about the size of a Gunsect, is in the end of the tunnel. Its body is pretty much wrecked and its wings shattered, but they remain as jagged, sweeping limbs. Touya has been shoved into the shattered, porcelin-like abdomen, which seems to be draining his energy somehow. From the shattered eyes inside the head, a withered, lizard-like face can be seen staring at them with one eye full of incredibly ancient malice. It tries to drag itself forward, shuddering and clicking. WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! ?????? RELIC BEE MACHINE WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! Festenia ducks under a bee flying at her head, and jumps at another one coming in low, ignoring Roger's words. And then all of a sudden, there's an even bigger bee ahead of her. And in its abdomen it holds her partner Touya. He's not looking too well, either. The Fury girl points at the giant bee, grim determination in her eyes. "Give him back, or I'm gonna have to smash you!" Roger heeds Meiya's call and follows behind Festenia. Better not to let the girl get killed. He skids to a halt behind her, black shoes kicking up dust as he stares at the mechanical monstrosity before him. Idly, he's reminded of the Megadeus he'd met under Paradigm's foundation - the template creature the man calling himself Schwarzwald had tried to awaken. It was not a pleasant reminder. Roger's fists clench as determination sweeps over him as well, and he adopts a fighting pose, the stance of an expert boxer once again taking its shape. His drink is forgotten, laying somewhere in the tunnel; his straw hat looks almost comical atop his head, except for the seriousness of the face underneath it. Roger adjusts his sunglasses. No negotiating with this thing. Time for Part Two. Meiya doesn't mind the bee bits, it's hardly the time to be worried about that. She helps Ryoto up and follows after the others, coming to a stop inside the chamber to see Touya taken up... inside another..larger..bee. "What-" Meiya takes both hands up on her sword hilt. She transfer her weight to her back foot as she spreads out her stance. Holding the sword forward and down with the blade edge out in a defensive, but ready to attack stance. Meiya slowly circles around the machine. "Why, is this here?" "Goodness only knows," Ryoto says. "Maybe it's from-- La gias? Or something?" The important thing is that it's got Touya and it has four flailing limbs with lots of jagged metal, and possibly more tricks besides. Ryoto can feel a malicious psychic pressure from it that's grating at his mind, for one thing. The bee-thing and its shrivelled pilot don't- can't- reply to the three of them, at least not with its vocal cords, which are probably long gone. Who knows what strange power is keeping the mummified man-thing alive? Only a feeling of intense malice, that clings to life no matter how vile it might become, assails the four lost pilots- malice and hunger and the scent of opiates. It swings its winglike limbs, the jagged, rusty metal parriable but remarkably dangerous unless someone could get very low to the ground. The thing creaks and groans like it could fall apart any moment. It doesn't seem to be able to move its body any more. "Looks like we got lucky," Roger says slowly, knowing well that that could trigger some horrible cataclysm. "Hopefully it can't move much." Festenia just keeps glaring at the thing, any fear she might normally feel pushed aside by steadily growing anger. That thing is hurting Touya. She's not sure how it's doing it, but it's hurting him somehow. The urge to just rush in and try to beat it down gets harder and harder to resist. "...I can't take this! If we wait any longer, Touya could die!" she shouts, charging the giant bee head-on. She isn't sure how, but Festenia is going to find a way to get her partner out of there. Just gotta be careful with those flailing limbs. "We have to get him out of there." Meiya says flatly. "That thing could be killing him. We can't wait any longer." Meiya suddenly darts off to side, trying to get around the giant Bee thing. She rushes in at it's side, swinging her sword in a large arc, aiming to hack off one of the Bee Giant's limbs. "HYAAAA!" When you don't know the right course, just trust your guts and charge in with a yell! You might not die! Thankfully for Festenia, Meiya's able to crack one of the limbs back sufficiently to stop it from ripping into her, allowing her to get close enough. Roger does something terribly clever and punches lizard-lips a lot, which is marvellously helpful, but Ryoto is sort of faltering and can't get past the curtain of steel that the other broken wings are creating. Touya seems to be connected to the machine with some sort of thin strings which are in fact actually made of silk string, albeit ones that are glowing and somewhat stitched into his clothes. They glitter as they drain the boy's prana, but all that's obvious to the layman is it's doing something horrible to him and eating his soul. Fortunately the string is easy enough to tear. Ryoto is trying to use his flashlight as a club to get through, but it's playing havoc with the available light. Meiya slashes, fending the creaky limb away, but the stobbing flashlight isn't making things easy. "Ryoto! Try to keep the light steady!" she hops back, then lunges in again, swinging the sword upwards to try and get in under the thing's gaurd. "What is it doing to him?" . Festenia barely even notices that she almost got killed there, too intent on getting Touya out of that thing. She jumps over the other limb when it inevitably swings at her, and makes a flying leap for her partner. Yes, she basically just tried to tackle the thing. "TOUYAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Ryoto-- Steps back. As much as he would like to help the guy, 'maintaining steady light' is important, too. So he shines the light from the torch as best he can, while doing his best to fend off the smaller robot bees. Stomp stomp stomp. The hideous pilot 'looks' at Festenia as she takes a flying leap, as Roger tries to twist off another of its limbs at the joint. It's a hideous sight, with a face that really looks like some sort of museum mummy or preserved, dried corpse. The man's body can be barely seen within the mech, but the mechanical innards are more obvious. Does she dare try attacking the inner workings? The bee flails and hisses, trying to scissor Meiya with its jagged blades. Yes, yes she does dare. The only thing going through Festenia's mind right now is 'save Touya'. Everything else, including personal safety, takes a backseat at this point in time. As soon as she lands, she grabs onto whatever she can to keep herself from falling off the giant bee, and makes her way toward the teen, ignoring everything else around her. She brought him here, and she's going to bring him back home. Meiya drops down into a three point stance. Her hat cut in two by the sicossring limbs overhead, it falls to either side as she stands up. She leaps on top of the limbs as her hair falls from it's bun on the top of her head. "Get him out of there!" she shouts at Frestina. Meiya holds up the katana in both hands at eye level, point out towards, staring at the reptillian face inside the machine. Meiya leaps forward again, slashing again in an attempt to get in to the machine's cockpit...or what passes for one. Ryoto points that light so darn well. Festenia is... furious. She is fury. Literally and metaphorically. So much for plucking at strings, she more or less bodily rips Touya out of the china abdomen of the ancient robot, giving it a sudden power failure. As the limbs fall back, Meiya makes a ferocious lunge on the pilot, smashing the prana power core and whacking the comparatively tiny joint connecting the thorax to the abdomen. The pilot looks gruesome, black blood dripping from his eyes for a moment as the machine's body flies backwards, then with an airy BANG it detonates against the wall. The stones crumble, a statue on the other side falls and-- Wait, statue? ...yes, it's the terracotta soldier from earlier... Meiya lands again on the ground as the bee machine slams into the wall and tears it down. "We need to find a way out..." she cuts herself off as the statue falls. Meiya picks her way across the wreckage up to the statue and looks out. As soon as Festenia rips Touya free, she jumps off of the giant bee machine, hugging Touya tightly to her and positioning herself to take most of the impact from the fall. It hurts, but that only tells her that it was a good idea to take the blow herself rather than let Touya smack into the ground. At his current condition, there's no telling what could tip him over the edge. Wait, what /is/ his current condition? She lifts him off of her and lays him on the ground next to her, checking his vitals. It looks like he'll be alright, for now. She breathes a sigh of relief. And oh hey look there's the way out. Bizarrely, yes. The bee-machine thing must have bored this tunnel and sealed itself up, then planned to use its smaller drones to disable whoever it could teleport inside. The tunnel only extends a few feet in the other direction and is filled with an assortment of rusted, long-since-dead bee drones. The psychic pressure has however only gotten worse with the pilot's death, and the faces in the walls are scowling, as if his malice has transferred to the stone. Ryoto takes a few careful steps forward and stands by Meiya's side, looking at Touya. "I think we should declare this investigation closed." When Touya wakes up, the first thing he sees is Festenia's face above him, looking at first very worried and then very relieved. He doesn't feel so hot at the moment. In fact, he feels sort of like something's been sucking him dry. And then he remembers the bees, and that giant bee, and... "On second thought...I'm glad it was you and not Melua who brought me here..." he says, then hastily adds, "B-but don't tell her that. I don't want to hurt her feelings." "Next time?" Meiya looks at Ryoto. "Lets go to New York."